


Our Chance is Gone

by LadyAuroraStars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Draco Malfoy, Adult Hermione Granger, Affairs, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Heartache, Heartbreak, OTP is in painnn, One Shot, Post-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAuroraStars/pseuds/LadyAuroraStars
Summary: Hermione is found sitting in the empty Great Hall on a summers day in a long white wedding dress, and tears in her eyes.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Kudos: 23





	Our Chance is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry. I was really in my feelings. This is a one-shot established relationship of Dramione finding peace in their hidden affair.

She sat in the great hall, at the table that had once been where she had eaten every breakfast, and spilt juice on textbooks. The thick wood of the table had marks of her childhood, much like everyone whom sat there before her. The knicks and dings all held stories, and as she ran her hand over them she couldn’t help the smile that painted her face. The room was cool, unlike when all the houses children were crowded in, and the open doors allowed a small breeze to push around the room, the summer sun bouncing off the floor as it poured through the vast windows. Hogwarts was a different place in the summer, home to different stories then the one she was used to, unlike anything she had ever seen during the school year. It was empty for the most part, a warm haunting of gentle winds and sun rays. 

“I thought I heard a little mouse.” The Headmaster’s voice echoed off each wall. 

The tall woman walked her way over to the grand table, and took a seat across from Hermione, in the spot Harry would have sat if they were having Monday breakfast. 

“I didn’t know you were coming,” She said as she folded her hands on the table top, glancing around the large room at all the sunlight, “I would have had food prepared.” 

Hermione laughed quietly to herself, “I didn’t come here for a meal, Headmaster.” 

“No, of course not. But in my experience, tea can help with any predicament.” Suddenly, a cuppa appeared in front of both of them. A small teaspoon full of honey dunked itself into the teacup in front of her. She doesn’t touch the steaming tea, but McGonagall picks her own up delicately and takes a sip. “What did you come here for Hermione?” 

Hermione’s eyes drift to the spot at the table across from her. Her eyes gently landing on the spot that used to antagonize her, on the spot she used to peak over to each morning at breakfast and each evening at supper, even though she knew she shouldn’t. The place her eyes had always found. 

McGonagall followed her eyes, and signed. “Summer weddings were never my choice, I’ve always preferred a nice winter snow to a summer heat. Elphin and I were wed on a brisk winter morning. It was quite beautiful.” 

Hermione looks over to the women who had become her mentor over the years, who looked the exact same as the day she had greeted her and her classmates to Hogwarts. “Maybe I’ll blame it all on the heat. That...that could be my excuse for temporary insanity.” 

The two women sit at the long Gryffindor dining table in the warmth for a few more moments in silence. The elder sipping on her tea, and watching the young woman with concerned eyes while the younger breathes heavily and tears decorate her face. 

“I like to think I know you pretty well Hermione...and if you would like it I might be able to offer some advice, assuming that's why you came here.” 

She says nothing in response but raises her large brown eyes in question. 

The elder woman places her teacup upon the saucer, and lays her long fingers flat on the tabletop. “I could have married a man whom was a good man, a great man some might say...but I did not because I knew I would never be happy with him. My mother and father told me I would be, and my best friend told me I would be but I knew deep down I would never be truly happy. You see… we can love in grand magnitudes over our lives. Each person we love is put into our lives for a reason at a certain time… I truly believe that. The difficult part is understanding when it’s time to part and accept a love that will make you happier.” 

Hermione doesn’t respond right away but sits with the words and wonders who the great man was that Mcgonigal could have married. But did he even matter? Because she didn’t marry him, she married Elphin, and she had lost him. 

“Would you do it again? Even though you lost him?” 

Loud footfalls can be heard down the hall, and the two women turn their heads towards the noise. 

“Granger!” Yells the voice, making Hermione’s entire body go stiff. “Granger I know you're here!” 

He rounds the corner of the Great Hall finding them both sitting in the empty quiet room. McGonagall looks the same that she always has, sitting across from Hermione. Hermione who had her crazy mane of hair carefully pinned up from her neck, wearing a long white dress that was slightly ripped at the bottom. Her large brown eyes decorated with dark paint that was running down her left cheek slightly. She looked exquisite, she looked nothing short of heartbroken. 

“What the hell did you do?” He breaths out, just loud enough for her to hear him. 

McGonagall clears her throat as she stands and walks past him, “I‘ll give you two some space.” She pats his shoulder softly on the way out, passing him a small smile. 

Hermione doesn’t move, doesn’t know if she could move an inch from that spot. And not for the first time in her life she wanted to melt into this seat, and have everyone forget her. 

“Hermione!” He growls, marching towards her. “You are supposed to be the smart one!” 

“How did you know I was here?” 

He stops and raises an eyebrow at her, “I know you.”

She grimaced, thinking of how he’s the only one that knew where she would go, its been hours and no one else has come looking. 

“You look beautiful.”

She closes her painted eyes, “What are you doing here Malfoy?” 

She doesn’t look up at him when he takes McGonigal's empty seat, “Heard Gryffindor’s Princess ran out of her wedding…and she had just promised me she was going to go through with it.” 

The silent tears start to run down her cheeks and she watches as one lands in the cold cup of tea, “I tried, I couldn’t.” 

He sighs, his shoulders falling from the high spot they had been sitting. “We...we can’t do this again Granger. You know we can’t.” 

“Then I won’t. But I won’t marry Ron just because he’s a good man and seen as acceptable. It’s not fair to him, and it's not fair to me.” 

“And how is the alternative fair to you?” 

“Don’t.” 

“I will Granger,” He huffs out, his grey eyes trapping her in his gaze, “You know we can’t be anything more then we have been. We can’t! You are you, and I, former death eater, Malfoy heir, arrogant father of two… it would ruin you.” 

“What if I already am ruined?” 

His grin doesn’t find his eyes as he tells her that she was the purest of all people he knew. “But you’re right, I’ve ruined you. I have loved you more fiercely in my life then I will ever love anyone but you...Granger you will find someone deserving of all your love, and you’ll love them more than you ever loved me, maybe it’s not him but we both know it's not me.” 

“What if it is you Draco?” She’s angry now, angry with herself and everyone for letting her walk out of that ceremony this afternoon. 

He turns the silver ring on his left hand around and around his finger, “Because Hermione, five years ago you stood right over there,” He aggressively strikes his finger out to point at the corner of the room, “ And told me you didn’t love me!” 

Shoving her hands against the table top she stands and roughly lifts her dress up to step over the bench. 

“No, no you don’t get to run away from this conversation!” Draco raises his voice as he gets up and walks around to meet her. 

“I didn’t ask you to come here!” 

They stand facing one another, standing off as they both glare at one another. Hermione’s face full of anguish and anger and Draco’s full of...hurt and love. 

“What do you do you want from me Hermione?” He pleads, his voice slightly breaking and at this point, this room’s wall have become familiar with all of the pleading he’s done with her over the years. 

She stutters over herself, “I...I don’t know!” 

He turns as though he’s turning away from her but stops himself, “Well you need to figure it out! Because look at you! Standing here in a wedding dress because you were so adamant that you loved him, and you sure as hell loved him more than you ever loved me! And here you are, fucking running away from all the bullshit you got yourself into, when I begged you! I begged you to choose me Hermione! Do you fucking remember that? I would have killed for you… I still would but you didn’t want me!” 

“You know I wanted you!” 

“Yeah Granger, you wanted me after I found Astoria. After you couldn’t have me, and I ran to you. I crawled to you when you called me, and the whole fucking time I thought if this is what she wants, if she wants to hide us then I’ll do it. But you know what? That’s fucked up, we are fucked up people for doing this to them! Both of them, because you and I both know neither of them would do this to us.” 

She doesn’t say anything to that, doesn’t know what to say because he’s right. Ron would never do something like this to her, let alone hide it for five years. 

She wipes the tears from her cheeks, and looks away from him. 

“I don’t need you to tell me how fucked up I am, because I know.”

“You need to fix this Granger!” He shouts, his words bouncing around her. 

She runs her hands down her sides, as if in pain, “What if there’s a chance that it was supposed to be us? No one knows me the way you do, what if I royally screwed up? What if I was supposed to walk out of here five years ago with you? What if that’s why I haven’t been able to let you go?” 

Malfoy walks towards her slowly, the sun behind him blinding her with sunlight as it glows around him. As the sob breaks from her chest, he wraps his arms around her. The arms she had silently fallen into for the past six years of her life, the arms that held all the secrets and dreams she couldn’t share with others. The arms that had kept all of her truths and all of her lies, that never judged her for any of them. She clung to him like her life depended on it, his heartbeat meeting her ears, and they just stood there. 

Until the sun went down over the hills and the room started to get dark, they stood in the middle of the great hall, clinging to one another, clinging to the idea that in another life they could have been more than deception and lies. 

Draco shifts his head from the spot it was laying on the crown of her head, and gently places his lips against her ear, “ Our chance has been over for a long time. You need to figure out what you want, but it isn’t me. We both know it never has been.” 

She glances up as his lips meet the corner of her jaw for one brief moment before he loosens her grip around him, and with one last dreadful look their eyes meet, and he walks past her, learning her standing alone in the dimly lit Great Hall.


End file.
